I can totally understand a person consciously trying to not pay attention to Congress lately; everyone knows that the best way to deal with a child throwing a tantrum is to refuse to reward them with attention. But we've gotten to the point where the Congressional toddler is holding his breath and threatening to pass out, throwing small heavy objects at windows, banging his head against a wall. We've gotten to the point where the government is on the verge of shutting down, and the people responsible for it are comparing themselves to Rosa Parks.

Ted Yoho, a white man from Florida — who, prior to his election to Congress for the first time last fall was a large animal veterinarian — made thestunningly idiotic proclamation yesterday, when he told the New York Times,

“It only takes one with passion — look at Rosa Parks, Lech Walesa, Martin Luther King,” Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL), who was elected to the House last year, told the New York Times in a story published Friday. "People with passion that speak up, they’ll have people follow them because they believe the same way, and smart leadership listens to that.”

No, Ted Yoho, you swampdwelling fuck: shutting the government down because you don't want people to have health care is exactly the opposite ofthe sort of thing that black female civil rights leader Rosa Parks, former Polish President and human rights activist Lech Walesa, and pacifist civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. would do. Are you having a stroke? Has every Republican in the US House of Representatives been having simultaneous strokes since January?

Have words just... stopped meaning things? I'm serious, dear readers. Between this and that hypocritical anti-Obamacare ad urging women to keep Uncle Sam out of their vaginas that premiered this week, I'm beginning to worry that the ongoing conservative analogy crisis has reached critical mass.